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Dusty

By: Dusty Rhodes, Howard Brody
Narrated by: Kerry Woodrow
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Publisher's summary

There has been much said about Dusty Rhodes, the 'American Dream', over the years by both his fans and peers. Aside from the frequent fictional prose penned by wrestling magazine journalists and internet smart marks that run rumor-mill websites, however, there has not been much written about him. Until now.

With the exception of a select few, there has been no bigger name or personality in the annals of pro wrestling history than Dusty Rhodes. Of those few, none of them can claim the compelling back story Rhodes shares in Dusty: Reflections of an American Dream of an industry plagued with political loyalties and disloyalties, greedy promoters, manipulative bookers, destructive personalities, multi-millionaires, and great leaders. Behind the "million-dollar smile" and the million dollar gate receipts is a man with a story to tell - not just of tall tales, yarns, and fabrications, but of a life filled with aspirations, dreams, disappointments, challenges, controversies, angst, conflict, success, and reflection.

Dusty: Reflections of an American Dream is the story of a transformation from mediocrity to superstardom. It is the story of how the boy Virgil Runnels Jr. became the man Dusty Rhodes and truly lived the 'American Dream'. This is his story.

©2005, 2006, 2012 Dusty Rhodes and Howard Brody (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
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Editorial reviews

Virgil Riley Runnels, Jr,. is a wrestler (and former journalist) better known as Dusty Rhodes, "The American Dream". Dusty, written with Howard Brody, is the story of a man whose dreams have come true through a larger-than-life career.

In chatty, expletive-laden prose, Rhodes takes the listener from his first wrestling match to the heights of the sport, and includes accounts of his friendships with other famous wrestlers like Andre the Giant and his rival Ric Flair.

Kerry Woodrow tells Rhodes’ story with a deep southern drawl and a conversational tone.

What listeners say about Dusty

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Dusty Ego

Some great stories but his ego is even more epic than those. Wrestling fans will like it.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Love the story but........

I've always been a huge Dusty fan, so I'm not surprised that I liked the stories included in the book. I also liked the casual nature of the story and that it felt conversational.

The performance of this book was atrocious. I was continually taken out of the enjoyment of the story by the narrator outrageously mispronouncing the names of all the wrestlers. It was annoying and unnecessary.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Too many mispronounced names by narrator!!

Narrator obviously had no knowledge of wrestling history. He mispronounced almost every name in the book. Really took me out of the stories.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Ruined by the narrator

I'm totally addicted to audible and audio books. I've heard so many fantastic narrators who do voices and characters. Some go all out and capture the accents and the flavors of speech. Maxwell Caulfield sounds like KK Downing in KK's book Heavy Duty. This guy adopts a half assed Texas accent and butchers nearly every name in wrestling history. Verne Gadgeknee, Paul Besh, Paul Ordenoff, Johnny Vailant, ohl Anderson, Antonio Inuki, UGH

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome

This was a great story about a man that can go down as a legend....... The American Dream will live forever through all the people he touched....

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great story but poor QC on the recording

I loved the book but shame on the publisher for being sloppy as the narrator butchers the names of several people in the book and it made me cringe every time. It would’ve been very easy to have someone in the studio with the narrator to correct the pronunciations. Not the fault of the narrator who did a great job but it took from my overall enjoyment to hear the names of people we all know in the wrestling biz mispronounced repeatedly. Happened several times in the book.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great and entertaining listen

performance was great as i felt like it could have been Dusty reading it to me. And voices were different with quotes from other people that i can tell when it was or wasn't Dusty talking.

and is story is amazing

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

great story, poor reading

Narrator kept mispronouncing wrestlers names which was distracting. Dusty's story is intoxicating, however there were several NSFW language moments.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

reader sucks

reader needs to learn how to pronouncethe names in the book. even simple names were messed up

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good book, TERRIBLE narration

Great stories from one of the all time greats in wrestling. The narrator though may be THE WORST of all time. He reads in a fake, overly exaggerated southern accent with mispronunciations galore. He obviously did ZERO research on how to pronounce names, towns, etc. Just GOD AWFUL.

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1 person found this helpful